Mouse (Worm) (AltPower) (MTaylor)
by WordBorscht
Summary: An introverted teenage boy with an unconventional superpower, Taylor uses his powers to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. He is thrust into the midst of the local 'cape' scene's politics, crime, gangs and drugs as he struggles to maintain his conscious and faces the turmoil of having to do the wrong things for the wrong season. -REWRITE-
1. Chapter 1

**An introverted teenage boy with an unconventional superpower, Taylor uses his powers to find escape from a deeply unhappy and frustrated civilian life. His first attempt at using his powers for thrusts him into the midst of the local 'cape' scene's politics, crime, gangs, and drugs as he struggles to maintain his conscious and swallow his compunction as he swirls deeper into the pit of crime and corruption that is Brockton Bay. As he risks life and limb, Taylor faces the turmoil of having to do the wrong things for the wrong reasons.**

 **ARC 1 : GESTATION**

1.1

I stared at the clock on the wall as if I were a convict staring at a guillotine. Each infuriating tick counting down to the entire hour of hell that I would have to weather through. Five minutes until lunchtime.

In hindsight, coming to this class in the first place was a bad move in my part, but the time to regret that decision was long past. I could already feel his eyes piercing the back of my neck. It was only a matter of time until he caught up to me, and… well, if my bruised right arm tied to my neck with a sling is anything to go off of, beat me to a pulp and leave me near dead. Remembering that night brought a pang of sharp pain in my shoulder.

I tried to focus on Mr. Gladly to distract myself from the pain, but as he excitedly yammered on something relating to cape politics that we already covered years ago. But as he went on, my attention towards him continually degraded while the pain in my shoulder intensified.

I couldn't care less about schoolwork to be honest. I remember when school was life, I wonder how me from then would react to my grades nowadays.

I looked at the clock again, I felt my heart rate increasing with every lapse of the round clock head. I could feel my heartbeat in my ears. I could feel the heartbeats within the walls.

"And look at the clock, Sorry Class, but I'm afraid there is in fact gonna be a little homework for tonight"

Groans were heard throughout the class, although mine was more like the gurgling death rattle a dying antelope, tired with life but still not wanting his throat ripped out by the lion. Internally of course, I do not nearly have the self-esteem to groan out loud.

And all of a sudden, I felt a sharp pain in my right arm. I grunted. I looked back, trying to see who did it, I saw a tuft of red hair in the corner of my vision and immediately regretted it.

Looking back, that was a bad move on my part. I should have known it was Madison, the signs were there, who the fuck else would do something so stupidly childish? There was already giggling in the back, was that not proof enough?

Why the fuck did I have to turn backwards.

I already felt his stare on my neck, his stone cold stare. I stared at the shadow he cast from the back of the room. I could see him shaking with rage that had been building up the entire length of the class, that had just been released the moment I had committed the egregious sin of having his girlfriend in my peripheral. His shadow looked strangely smoky, like the source of the shadow had been slowly melting away in his own rage.

When Gladly opened the door, I immediately bolted out and didn't look back. It was futile, of course, it's not like I could out run a track runner.

I ran as fast as I could and acted on my instincts to find a room, a container, or something I could lock myself in.

In hindsight, that was a bad instinct to have when running away from somebody that could kick off every single door in the school off its hinges. Especially because it made me make the stupid decision of hiding inside a bathroom stall.

Great choice, Taylor. Now you've ensured that there are as few witnesses as possible see the pummeling that you are about to receive. Why don't you kick your own ass while you're at it, save everyone the trouble.

It was 10 seconds or so until I smelt him, or, they smelled him, the things scurrying inside the walls and in the ceilings.

Those ten seconds lasted a lifetime as I felt my life up until that point flash in front of my eyes. I was almost pissing myself with fear, I tried counting, breathing exercises, fucking anything.

I then heard him, then I felt him. There was a bang, a loud one. It was several stalls away from mine, but it shook even the ceramic toilet I was sitting on.

"IN THERE, YOU FUCKER, I KNOW YOUR HIDING IN THERE, GET THE FUCK OUT FACE ME LIKE A MAN!"

I heard each stall being being kicked open violently in succession until he kicked mine. He kicked the door so hard, but amazingly, the lock help up. But the screws holding the thing together were shaking, it would not withstand another kick.

"OPEN THE FUCK UP YOU FUCKING BITCH!" Another kick landed against the door, and the hinges shot off into the ceiling, and the door went flying everywhere in pieces, chipped wood and sawdust fell to the floor as I was face to face with Solomon Hess.

I did not have the chance to process this when he pulled me up by my collar and threw me to the sinks, only to pull me by my collar again.

"Did I not FUCKING tell you!" He growled at my face. I was not facing him, instead I looked to the side where there was an audience forming outside the bathroom. They wouldn't do anything, of course, or say anything. In fact, I saw light reflecting off a camera that was being used to record me. " Did I not fucking tell you to not even LOOK-"He socked me in the nose.

I felt an explosion of pain as my glasses snapped in half, and the frame dug into my cartilage.

"AT HER" He finished the statement by punching me above the stomach, but beneath the chest. I felt the air go out of my lungs. I wheezed, and wheezed further before dropping to the ground.

My vision was blurry, and my pain was dull as the noises began to intensify. A thousand feet scurrying, a thousand teeth gnashing, a flood of grey fur within the walls.

I was dragged up by the collar again. " I even see you near her" his arm in one movement switched from grabbing my collar to grabbing my throat " I'll put you in a more comfortable box than the dumpster I stuffed you in a month ago"

I wheezed, my air intake had gone from little to none. My vision was blurring, I could feel my pulse stopping at where his hand was around my throat. I wheezed harder, but it was cut short as no air would go down. My head was getting lighter, the scurrying in the walls were getting louder.

I saw two tiny blood red eyes, the size of droplets of ichor attached to a rat with a coat as white as snow, staring from a crack in the ceiling. It was baring its fangs, ready to pounce, rip something to shreds.

And so were hundreds of other rats, hundreds of them from throughout the school. Young, old, black, brown, white, grey, all with teeth and claws bared. Ready to eat a living man from skin to bone, and after that, even the bone. To climb down someone's throat and eat them from the inside out, to pile down from the ceiling and walls. To flood out and kill every single uncaring motherfucker inside the school. But starting with Solomon.

A hundred would be dumped over him, and a hundred more would gather and gouge his eyes out, travel in every orifice imaginable. He would be unable to shout with the thirty rats I could plausibly force down his throat, buried under a pile of fur, flesh, teeth, claw and bone until they ate him to the marrow.

And the best thing, I would feel every single part of it, I would taste his blood, taste his brain, taste his eyes, feel the vibration of him attempting to shout with rats inside and outside him. And finally, consume him bit by bit until a skeleton framework remained.

And after I killed Solomon, then Emma, then Madison, then everyone. Sure the PRT would catch me, but I would already be dead by then, and I would die satisfied, knowing I dragged these wretched souls to hell with me. Fuck this, I began to give the command-

"Solomon! Stop!" I heard from across outside the bathroom. A voice I recognized, a voice that was very familiar to me until recently. Memories of the days when things were good came and wiped away all of the homicidal thoughts I had at the moment.

The grip on my throat was released, I began to swallow in the air as if it was the most precious thing. I dropped to the floor, and closed my eyes. I heard the crowd begin to disperse. In a short while, I was there by myself.

I rose to the sink, using my good arm as a leverage. I took off the glasses which had made an indent into my nose. The sink turned crimson as I cleaned my face in its refreshing cold embrace. I bent my glasses into shape and looked at myself in the mirror.

Taylor Hebert. 15, Lanky, short curly hair, wide mouth. The textbook definition of average, not handsome by any definition of the word. I stared to inspect the damages. The frame of the glasses had made a crimson indent into my nose. My nose had a slightly bluish tone to it. And had started to swell. Of course, my arm was as fucked as ever, and now I had a matching bruise on my abdomen to go with it. Just another injury to add to the ever increasing list.

I began to clean the blood off my hands, and the soothing sensation of the water gave me some moment to think through what just happened. How the fuck did this happen? When did it all go so painfully wrong? It was a foolish question to which I knew the answer.

Emma. It all began with Emma Barnes. We were friends, childhood friends, best-friends even. My only friend, now that I think about it. When I think back, way back. I begin to remember the golden days, when we talked without secrets, played without expectations, and laughed without insincerity.

Which is what made it so painful when it, just, stopped. A few years ago when Dad … dad … ah fuck. My eyes began to water, and I pinched my eyes shut, and breathed deeply through my nose.

Anyway, I had not seen her the whole summer. I had switched schools just to be close to her, not because I wanted to be with her or anything, just for the fact she was my only friend. I had been excited to start the school, it had been the only thing I was looking forward to after I spent the whole summer mourning. But when I came back, everything had changed.

The biggest and most obvious change was Solomon Hess, up and coming track star and amateur football player. She had started going out with him over the summer, and she had changed. She was colder, more spiteful and much more materialistic.

I attempted to make friends with her again, sit with her during lunchtimes, talk to her in the hallways and hang out after school. A few weeks after I came to school, I was waiting outside the doors of Winslow like I did every day. Emma did not show up, Solomon did.

Hey beat me up badly, broke my arm, and then locked me up inside a garbage dumpster.

They found me the next morning when the dumpster was getting emptied into the back of a garbage truck. I was rushed to Intensive Care where they pumped me full of antibiotics for four days. I was comatose for a week afterwards.

Nonetheless, I entered that Dumpster without powers, and came out with the ability to control rats. Yes, that was my power. Rat Control. Rat. Control.

After I left the hospital, I couldn't sue Solomon, or do anything against him, really. The hospital stay and the antibiotics had cost my mom dearly, and any more funds out of her savings for something as inane as justice would have financially broken us.

After that whole bullshit, I would avoid Emma at every cost, even if it was a patch of red I saw in a hallway, I would avoid it. Of course, that streak of avoiding redheads seems to have been broken today. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been beaten the shit out of today.

Emma wasn't the only one who changed through, I realized I've been having much more homicidal thoughts that I had before I triggered. Could that be related to the power? Or have I been a sociopath all this time, just without the means to carry out my tendencies?

Well, in any case, I can't leave the bathroom wound up like this, I might end up stabbing somebody with my broken spectacles. Or make some rats act erratically and reveal myself, Anonymity was a personal quality that I heavily valued.

My adrenaline was on overdrive, I sat on the toilet and closed my eyes. I breathed deeper and deeper. This was a technique to calm down I discovered in the first few weeks from when I gained my power.

I closed my eyes and counted, and breathed deeply. I detected rats in a radius of around one block or so, one and a half if I stretch it. I detected around 357 rats around me. I had them gather around the cavity of the ceiling around me.

I separated the strong ones from the dregs, the old, the young, the weak. I then had the able and strong rats surround the dregs.

See, One aspect about my power I found out was that my control over each rat increased the more time they spent under my control.

The rats I contacted and mastered today, giving commands was the extent of my control over them. Perhaps I could pick up a few smells here and there from ones I had with me for a few weeks, but nothing substantial.

But the white rat, who had been with me since the day I was stuffed into that dumpster. I saw inside the ceiling through his red eyes, smelled what he smelled, tasted what he tasted.

And I tasted blood, as the white rat began to dig into a smaller rats. More rats followed, all of them feasting on their still-living brethren who were immobilized by my command.

It was an absolute bloodbath. A gnashing pool of blood and fur. I could hear the squirming of the rats and the pitter-patter of the rats as they wrestled each other, scratched each other, killed each other, ate each other. Every time, a rat killed one of the dreg rats, and feasted on its flesh, its brain was jacked full of pure dopamine. Pure dopamine you can only get from having successfully killed and feasted on a prey while hopped up on adrenaline and endorphin.

I was ashamed of the high I got from the dopamine of 200 rammed into my brain. It was euphoric, it felt like I had climbed the tallest mountain or slain a thousand enemies and bathed in their blood. It was just pure joy at having overcome something.

This was how I got over shitty days like this, it disgusted me that I relied on the joy of rats killing and maiming each other to feel good. But it's not like I was proud of it or anything. And hey, it took a boatload of stress off me, so I won't be stabbing anyone anytime soon.

I stood up from the toilet and washed my hands in the sink again. I didn't have to, but I just felt dirty.

From the corner of my eye, the red eyed white rat slowly crept up the sink, though now its coat matchet its eyes, it had been completely coated in rat blood and organs. It took it only a few seconds under the faucet to regain its pristine white coat. I nestled the white rat and put it inside my shirt's front pocket, it was the only rat I felt comfortable doing so, mostly because it just felt purer than any other rat I have ever come across, most people, even.

With the white rat inside my pocket. I decided to head outside and leave school, there was a class or two left, but I didn't feel like staying a second longer. I charted a path outside of the school that had the least people in it and began walking in the general direction of home.

Fuck this place.


	2. Chapter 2

1.2

I woke up. I looked outside, it was still dark. It had been hard to sleep ever since I triggered. If it had anything to do with my power was anybody's guess. I always had insomnia, and it had gotten worse since dad passed away, but it became unbearable after I triggered. For the first few days after I triggered, I found it impossible to sleep whilst constantly being surrounded by rats. But nowadays, I found it hard to sleep when there weren't any rats around to occupy my attention.

I sat at my bed for a while. You'd be surprised at how fast time can pass when you're just sitting upright in your bed doing nothing, but it can. I remember when I was released from the hospital I would spend days just staring at nothing.

The only visual stimulus I allowed myself to waste energy thinking about was the White Rat, whom I would stare at for hours at a time, while he stared at me. It was strange, looking at yourself from the perspective of something much smaller. You feel much grander, much more powerful, much _more_ than what you actually are.

I got out of bed. I couldn't waste the whole day in bed again. Correction, I could. But I had a side project in the Docks that I kept specifically for days like this, when I felt trapped in my duvet, chained to the bed by comfort and fear of the world at large. It was something to drag me outside and stop me from wallowing at the sorry state of my life.

I got up, careful to not make any noise. And slowly dressed up. Nothing fancy, of course, just a jacket with some sweatpants. The simple act of putting on clothes was exponentially harder with only one arm.

I walked downstairs. One of the benefits to having a hundred ears within the walls was knowing exactly how much of noise you were making, and how you could adjust your body movement, force of each step, and the surface you were stepping on to make yourself quieter. As a result, I was able to make my way through the house without waking up my mother inside.

First thing I did was go into my mother's bedroom, and nab the spare glasses she kept in her drawer. Her prescription and mine were similar enough that we could switch glasses and not notice, and thankfully, the frame of her spare glasses were similar enough to my broken glasses that hopefully, it wouldn't arouse any questions. I looked over at the bed in her room, and was not surprised to discover her there.

She had not slept in this room ever since dad passed away. All of the drawers and closets were dusty from three years of being forgotten and I'm sure that the clothes inside had not been touched either. She kept this room exactly as it was three years ago.

I walked downstairs. And walked into the kitchen. The walls in the kitchen were solid enough that I wouldn't have to worry about waking up mom. There was still a pot of coffee on the kitchen table, though it had gone long stale. I poured the stale coffee in a cup and drank it slowly. It was incredibly sour, but I had gotten a taste for it.

Dad was the only one that drank coffee, both mom and I used to drink tea. But once he passed away, there was a stash of coffee bags in the drawer that was unused for years. I began drinking coffee a few months afterwards just because we couldn't afford to waste it.

It gave me a real taste for coffee. I always drank it black though, no sugar, no milk, and stale most of the time. The intense sourness and acrid taste of the coffee never failed to perk me up from drowsiness.

I began to walk outside of the house. And as I did, I heard a shuffling noise from the living room. I strided silently to the living room, and saw a figure slumped down on the sofa. It was my mother, shivering intensely. I closed an ajar window. I looked at her, even sleeping, she seemed tired.

I got compared to her more often than dad before puberty struck. We were both the same signpost build, the same muppety wide mouth, same curly hair, and before puberty, the same high slightly high pitched voice.

I took her hands in mine, she was too deep in sleep to even notice. Her fingers were thin, her knuckles were pale, and cold. I looked at her face and saw stress bolted onto it. My heart broke a little inside.

Ever since dad passed away, she had to quit her position at the school in order to support us. Even whilst working three jobs at once, she was struggling to make ends meet. She was trying so hard to be strong for both of us, but she wasn't dad.

She couldn't shrug off days of work like it was nothing, she couldn't face all of the bills, debts and costs we were facing and still maintain a smile. Not after dad passed away. God knows she tries, but it was obvious to everyone It was grinding her, every single day she came home more exhausted, more pale, more irritable.

Some days, it was hard to see the Annette Hebert that I remembered. But every time she lashed out, I had to remember the woman that lay before me, just as uncertain, just as scared, just as directionless as I was.

I covered her with a blanket that had fallen to the ground.

I went out the door, and began walking to my destination under the cover of moonlight.

Before triggering, my life in Brockton bay was confined only to the Boardwalk area. It was broad, open and gentrified. It was away from any large concentrations of people or threat of gangs. I never went out much anyway. Occasionally I would go to the library with mom, or rarely, to the shoreline, with dad.

That changed after the first night I triggered. Gentrified places actively made me feel more vulnerable due to the absence of rats and vermin. The trainyard area, the docks, and the more residential areas out west, with packet tenements, unkempt streets, and general squalor. It was the brunt of Brockton Bay, and it was my environment. I felt more at place at the worse off parts of Brockton than I ever had at the safer, cleaner parts.

As I walked, I gathered and made contact with any rats in my vicinity. It helped me visualise the city more and make a more accurate mental map of the city, it even helped reveal some hidden alleys, nooks, crannies, and shortcuts.

By now, I had at least a tenth of the city's infrastructure mapped out in my mind, the image getting clearer and more detailed the more I went out. Little by little, I began to understand the whole infrastructure of the city. It was fascinating, really. And occasionally, I found some really cool shit.

For example, there was an abandoned pool I had found in the docks. Apparently, it had been a community pool attached to a hotel before all business travelled down south to the boardwalk. The hotel had gone out of business and was converted to a residential block, and the pool was built over. The doors were boarded and the windows were sealed. Except one, that had been broken into, by me.

When I found this place, I had the bright idea of using secluded places like this into areas where I could consistently produce new and stronger rats in perpetuity, where they could grow strong without the threat of predators, and could be inured to my control without much resistance from birth.

The rats I gathered from the city were in most cases, too old, too young or too damaged to be useful, also they were a bitch to command.

So every day, I gathered a horde of rats, and dumped them into the pool. I then separated the rats from strong from the dregs, and dumped them into the pool. About half of the rats I gathered of my way here were dregs.

I commanded the dregs fall to stop breathing, and commanded the 2530 rats to devour them.

So here I was, overlooking a pool full of rats devouring a mound of dead rats. What has my life come to. The smell brought me back from contemplation. It smelled like absolute shit, rats shat every thirty minutes and perpetually pissed over the course of the day. That combined with the smell of the carcasses made vomit rise up in my throat, which I forced down.

I read that rats usually go into heat every four days, with small variations regarding species, so in a month or so, this would pay off and I would be getting strong, healthy and obedient rats.

Of course, it was hard to focus on the long term goals when the putrid stench was emanating from the pool as the rats were finishing off the last of the dregs. I exited the pool as fast as I could. I disgusted myself sometimes.

I looked at the time, a good 5 hours until the sun came up. I immediately started to get paranoid. What if somebody managed to uncover the pit by smell? This area was generally barren, but with the usual kind of people that lived here, you could never tell where a tired hobo might end up. And if they discover the pool full of rats and report that to the PRT then all my chances at pleasant anonymity is fucked.

I was also paranoid if the city council suddenly decided to start rebuilding the docks, would they inevitably end up finding the rat pool? I then took a reality check and realized that the city would never go to rebuild the docks, they promised to back in 2006, yet five years later, there aren't even any scaffolding here.

Even still, the pool was unsustainable, too out in the open, too many factors. But for the time being, it would do. I would have to start looking for better pits in the future, perhaps near a treatment facility. I snickered at my current situation, only a few months into my cape life, and I'm already thinking about underground lairs…

…

My train of thought was interrupted when a rat that had been lagging behind me, and was currently a few blocks away began to pick up some noise from a few miles away from me. The noise was faint though. So I began to force more of my consciousness into the rat. I sat down to the floor, closed my eyes, and opened them from a pair of eyes much smaller and much further away from mine, I saw two figures dressed in grey. They both wore balaclavas that hid everything except the eyes, but judging from what was revealed, I assumed them to be of asian descent.

I perked my rat ears up and began to listen intently.

"So this whole thing is going to only take an hour right?" the smaller, shorter figure said.

"If everything goes right, yes"

"And you need me too keep watch?"

"Yes, just keep an eye out for any red and green. If the ABB catches a single fuckin' whiff of what we're doing here, they will kill us, no two ways about it. If you want out now, then do it now"

"But why are we doing it today, though?"

"Lung's occupied with hunting down those fuckers that stole from his casino, even the Oni and that psycho bomb bitch is involved. This is the only shot we get to do this without them breathing down our neck"

"I'm serious Abdullah, those Merchants are crazy fuckers, they're serious gangsters. And I won't lie to you, there is a chance that bullets might fly today. Now, I'm cool if you still want to help us, god knows we need everybody we can for this trade to go right, but if you want out, then just say the word"

The smaller one, obviously the younger one looked hesitant before settling into a stern face and speaking again "I want in"

"Good boy, keep that peashooter close, and keep an eye out for red and green"

"I will, Howe"

The boy, Doolie, went away. 'Howe' then took a phone out of his pocket, punched a number into the phone and held it up to his ear. During their conversation, I had been able to get a few more rats to his location. Around 20 were surrounding him at various points, I imposed all of my conscious onto them so I could hear, see, smell and hear as if I were there. However, this did mean that my actual body was somewhat comatose, but I had the forethought to crawl into the pool room before I made myself vulnerable. The stench of the pool began to disappear as all new stimulus were introduced to me.

"Yeah, I'm here. It's safe, no traps, already secured the perimenter"

" _Ok, We're coming, everybody's already in the car"_

"Remember what I said, come from the west if you can, less people"

" _Is the raghead boy with you?"_

" The Boy has a name, you know? Abdullah, I send him away to keep watch on the perimeters"

" _Alright, alright, Mr. Champion of the People. I just need to know if he's trustworthy. So that he won't rat us out to the ABB"_

" The Boy's a Uyghur, the ABB treat him worse than shit, he's only in the gang because his father's chinese, no way he will rat out on us"

" _If you say so Howe, we're close"_

"Yeah, come quick, if those bridgetrolls catch me by myself without the case. I'm fucked"

" _Alright, I'm stepping on it"_

Even from a distance, I was able to smell the sweat from his tension. He was breathing hard, his right arm toying with a gun inside his back pocket. He was standing as stiff as a rock. His eyes seemed bloodshot and I could see the patch of sweat soak through his balaclava.

Somebody was on their way here, not somebody, but a group of people, I could smell them before I could see them or hear them. It was horrible, it was the kind of horrible cologne that the human body could expunge when left to its own devices, the smell of sweat, poverty and shit. I found it oddly comforting.

Howe noticed it after I did, and immediately one hand was on his pistol and another was on his phone "Fuck, Genji, they're here, Fuck, get here quick" He flipped the phone closed and put it in his pocket.

I saw six figures arrive, four weren't even wearing a shirt, you could see scab marks all over their body, it looked like somebody had halfheartedly skinned them and tattooed what was left. They looked emaciated, they walked with an unnatural lilt, like one of their legs were hobbled, but you couldn't tell which. They all held weapons, one a bat, another a pistol, and another, a

One was wearing a shirt, he held a pistol in one hand and held a suitcase in another. But the one that caught most my attention was a figure in a trenchcoat. He was covered in head to toe, a bandana wrapped around his mouth and nose, sunglasses and a cap to cover his head.

"Wasn't expecting only one" that came from the trenchcoat, his voice was raspy, the kind of raspy that sounded like his entire vocal chords were rusted off and he was communicating with what was left. He smelled like shit, an absolute mess of natural and chemical odours all concentrated into this one wofting mess contained within the trenchcoat "Where's the dope"

"My crew is coming" Howe said adamantly, I could smell the fear on him " Give me two minutes"

"We haven't got two fucking minutes" I heard a chuckle from trenchcoat "teach me about dealing with gooks eh boys" He looked to his compatriots, all of whom seemed tired, like they'd been dragged from their beds into coming here, nonetheless, they gave a forced mirthless chuckle.

I saw Howe's grip around the pistol tightening. "Just a single fucking minute is all I'm asking"

"This motherfucker serious?" Trenchcoat looked to his compatriots "Fuckin' slope thinks he can order me around'n shit"

Trenchcoat looked towards Howe " Boy, this is our neighborhood, what I'm saying is if you don't get the dope from wherever you're hiding it, I'm gonna bust a cap in your cunt and dump you in those waves back" I saw Howe getting frustrated.

"Your neighborhood? Merchant's don't own shit, least of all this fucking dump"

"What you say boy? You know my patience is being spread real fuckin' thin" I heard the noise of a gun cocking inside his trenchcoat.

I then smelled seven new prescences, all travelling from the west. They came screeching in a van, and they all stepped out, one by one. They were all dressed the same, black balaclava, grey hoodies and sweatpants. One came out with a case. All were armed with pistols of different types

" Now we can talk" Howe said. An air of smugness at now having the upper hand in terms of weapons and manpower.

"Show us the goods" The merchant wearing a shirt said

"Show us the money first"

Trenchcoat sighed, I could feel his eyes rolling behind his sunglasses "Show these fuckin' pussies, Chuck"

The figure in a shirt moved to the front with a case, and opened it. He showed the contents to all people involved. I caught a glimpse of it. Wads upon wads of cold hard cash. Stacked in rows upon rows. A line of drool made its way down my chin. The case represented more than just money, Even a quarter of the contents of the case would solve all of the problems me and mom were facing, and allow us to live a life we had been denied. "Fifty thousand, you can shove it up your ass for all I care, show us the dope"

I saw a grey figure with a case going through similar motions, showing them the case. I saw the merchants discussing amongst themselves, the man in the shirt hungrily looked at the case while Trenchcoat whistled, "That is a case of fuckin' beauty you got right there"

I recognized the severe increase in tension, now that each case were presented, there were stakes, things were going to be exchanged that someone could die for, the tension was palpable. Through the rats, I could literally feel the atmosphere, I could smell the adrenaline rich sweat coming off of each and every person. The atmosphere felt like a kettle at its boiling point, or a balloon one breath away from blowing up, or a buildup of logs with oil poured over it.

And all it needed was, a small, action, a tiny, spark, a poke. And these people would eat each other.

I weighed my need for the cash against the fact that somebody could die today.

I sent a rat up trenchcoat leg and had it dig its fangs as deep as it could into his thigh.

"AH FUCK! MOTHERFUCKER SHOT ME!"

All hell broke loose with the bang of a pistol


	3. Chapter 3

1.3

The gunshot erupted, I could hear the bang from miles away in my real body. But in the rat's ears, which could perceive a far larger range of sounds than a human's, it was deafening. And not only from a single rat, but twenty at once? It was like listening an artillery blast right next to your ear.

I forced some consciousness back into my body to lessen the nausea I felt. But as soon as I recovered from my vegetative state, the creeping realization of the fact that somebody was shot because of my action settled in. Somebody was shot. I caused it. I was hyperventilating. I needed to calm myself down, so I forced my way back into the rats, whose hearing was just barely recovering, but still heavily impaired.

But that didn't matter, everybody was shouting.

"Chuck! What the Fuck, man?!" said one of the shirtless merchants to 'Chuck', the only merchant wearing a shirt. And the one who was holding the case full of cash "Chuck, are you out of your fucking mind?"

"What the fuck is wrong with you, Junkie Fucks!" shouted one of the figures in grey "We didn't do shit and you just take a shot at us?"

"Fuck this shit" another grey figure. His voice sounded similar to the man Howe was speaking to on the phone, so I presumed this one to be Genji.

Genji drew a pistol hidden inside his hoodie, clicked its safety off and pointed it at Trenchcoat, who had been holding his leg in pain, the leg that I had mutilated.

Howe then walked and grabbed Ganji's pistol and pushed it down "Calm the fuck down, Genj! Nobody got shot" Howe then looked towards the Merchants.

"Now can we fucking do this without … without"

A trail of red made its way down Howe's chin. He grabbed his abdomen and realized that there was blood leaking through a hole that was not there before. Howe fell to the ground.

"Howe? Oh shit! Fuck! Howe!"

"Fucking pick him up!" Genji ordered the other greys.

Gunshot rang again, this time from Genji's firearm. The acrid smell of gunshot residue wofted into the air as everyone slowly began to register that today would not end in peace.

Blood would be spilt today.

Trenchcoat recoiled back, the shot went directly into his chest. I did not smell the coppery scent of blood from him "Gah, that's how you cunts wanna play, Huh?"

Trenchcoat reached into his, well, trenchcoat and drew a sizeable submachine gun. A dent in the barrel made it obvious where Genji's bullet had struck. As he cocked it and prepared to spray the greys full of lead, his hand was shot from a bullet that came from Howe, bleeding out on the ground.

All hell began to break out, and a hail of bullets were loosed from everybody with guns. And that's when I drew myself out of the rats. There was too much noise, too much acrid smells, too bright flashes from guns.

I slowly regained consciousness, and as I did, I vomited on the floor beside me. Tears began forming from the corner of my eyes. I could hear the echo of the battle from a distance, I could still hear them, their cries of pain, the shouts of anger and fear.

My heart sunk deeper every time there was a bang, knowing that people are dying right now because of something I did. It was an abstract concept that made me lose control of my body. Fifty thousand, I repeated like a mantra, trying to keep the bigger picture in mind to control myself.

With knees shaking, I began to wobble towards the direction of the battle. I realized that my face was visible to all, I pulled on the drawstrings and tied them together in a way to conceal it. I also took off the sling that my arm had been in, it would only hamper me here. I rotated my arm to test it once or twice. It still ached, but not enough to burden me.

I then looked through the rats, and saw Chuck, his shirt was soaked red from the dozen or so bullet holes that decorated it. In his grasp, there was the case. Fifty thousand, I repeated to myself, trying to ignore the grasp of the dead man that held it. The dead man whose death I caused.

I scouted further with the rats whilst walking to the battle.

The fighting has moved on somewhere else, the battlefield was mostly barren, though several corpses now occupied it. I saw Howe lying on the ground, one hand applying pressure to the bulletwound, another to on his pistol. His eyes looked near hollow, though they were staring into the night sky. In his hands was a black case, I assumed it to be the 'dope' that they were talking about.

I could smell the blood, I felt what I thought was hunger in the rat's stomach, though when I pulled out of the rats, and realized that the hunger came from me, I felt severely disgusted with myself.

When I was nearing the battlefield. I was stopped by the noise of the clicking of a gun.

"Who the fuck are you?" I heard him behind me. Walking whilst half my consciousness was in the skulls of rats miles away had made me not realize his presence. I turned my head, it was the boy from before. Doolie, his name was.

He probably thought I was a merchant straggler running away from the fight. He was uncertain though, I could see it in his eyes, and the way his pistol in his hand was quivering. Still, a gun was pointed at me, and I needed a way to defuse this.

"I'm not with them" I blurted out. Fucking masterstroke Taylor. No fucking reason for suspicion at fucking all. He didn't buy it, if anything it made him more resolute. The quivering in the gun had ceased.

"Bullshit, how the fuck do you know about this? Did you follow me? Are you ABB?"

I froze. I never did well on the spot.

"Fucking Answer Me!" He shouted, he shot a at the space next to me to try to get me to talk.

This wouldn't do. I drained my consciousness away into the rats in an effort to calm myself. And attempted to figure out a way to solve this without the adrenaline that was coursing through my blood at the moment. I opened my mouth to speak

"Look, did you hear those bangs?" He nodded, I suppose he was humouring me " Then you know where they came from right?" He nodded again.

"Then you should know you're friend's bleeding to death around there, and if we get there in time, we might save him" and get my fifty thousand.

"B-Bullshit, Who the fuck do you think I am?" said Abdullah

" You're Abdullah, an Uyghur with a chinese dad, and you'll have one less friend if you don't do what I say" I said as matter-of-fact as possible.

His grip on his pistol loosened and he looked hesitant. "Fucking fuck" I heard him mutter.

"Allright" he said breathlessly.

Abdullah followed me to the battlefield, it was a short walk there. Eventually we reached there, and I was greeted with the scene that I saw through different eyes. I gathered my rats and noticed the white rat among them.

"Holy shit, Howe!" Abdullah ran to his side, kneeling down as he began coughing blood at his presence. The white rat scurried up my leg and dropped into its rightful place in my pocket.

"Doolie, Doolie, is that you?" Abdullah took off his balaclava

"Yeah, yeah, It's me, talk to me Howe, talk to me"

He coughed, particularly violently this time, spreading blood all over Abdullah's hoodie "Fucker shot me in the chest, shit, I don't think I have much time"

Abdullah looked paralyzed "Doolie, listen to me *cough* this fuck came for the case, more might come for it, now listen, What I want you to do *cough* is to *cough*"

Howe kept blacking out at random "fucking get the case and dump it into the ocean, you hear? god knows what the ABB would do if they found it on you guys"

Howe looked ready to pass out "You hear me, kid? I don't wanna die in vain, now go, go away"

"Don't fucking talk like that! You're not dying" Abdullah said, he sounded desperate "Do you have a phone?" he asked my way.

"Don't waste your time, kid, line's clogged up, something big's happening downtown"

"Fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfcuk-

"HANDS IN THE FUCKIN' AIR" I heard as a gun was pointed our way. It was trenchcoat, his submachine gun's barrel shone under the sky which was steadily becoming more and more blue as the sun was coming up. Both Abdullah and My hands were up in the air.

"Put that case down there boy" He pointed to where he wanted the case and Abdullah complied under the barrel of the gun.

"All I wanted, was a simple fucking trade. Come here, take the case, leave, and somehow you fucking gooks fuck it up"

"You shot at us first, you *cough* fucking crackhead"

Trenchcoat pointed his gun at Howe, which was a considerable feat since he his hand had a hole in it "I told you fucking chink my patience' gettin' real fucking thin"

The submachine gun moved from Howe to Abdullah "No use wastin' a bullet on a dyin' chink"

Abdullah was scared as shit. His hands were red with Howe's blood and so was his face after he had taken his balaclava off. His eyes were heavy with tears and thick drops made their way down his face. I would have probably been in a similar state if I wasn't standing still on half a brain.

"Go on, cry, die like a bitch. Say hello to mama when I find her and send'er there, fucking chin-GAAH"

I tasted his tendon as the white rat bit deeply into his Achilles' tendon, gnawing and gnashing until it ruptured and shot up painfully into his calf muscles. I tasted blood and fat, until the rat's teeth stopped at bone.

-BANG- a shot had erupted from the ground, from Howe's smoking pistol that he was barely holding up. I saw Trenchcoat's neck explode into blood and bone as he gurgled and fell to the sand.

I drew back into the rat, and the bottled up tension that was building up throughout the standoff exploded like a bursting dam. I had almost died. I felt like pissing my pants, but in a strange way, it was weirdly euphoric.

I felt a feeling I had never felt before in my life, I felt like I won. It was exhilarating, all this adrenaline in my blood, all this tension, I couldn't give less of a shit about the fact I had committed several murders through several degrees of separation.

Whilst I was wallow in glory instead of depression for the first time in my life, Abdullah was wiping the tear off his eyes and moved to Howe's side, he had blacked out after he had taken the shot.

Abdullah put up his finger to his neck, and then to under his nose "He's still alive!" he looked to me "Fucking help me lift him!"

I quietly picked up the case, it wasn't that heavy, and lifted up Howe's legs with my free hand while Chen took care of the torso.

We walked until we reached asphalt. Neither of us had processed what had just happened enough to talk about it. Abdullah reached into Howe's pockets and dialled the emergency like.

"Help, we're at the … the … General Harvey Brockton Street, my friend just got shot, he needs immediate attention, I think he might die, please send someone quick"

He flipped the phone closed and put it in Howe's pocket, he let out a deep sigh of relaxation, I coughed.

"Well, nice meeting you, but I have to go-

"Wait" Abdullah said "My name is Abdullah Akhmad Yuan, you can call me Doolie, you saved my life, and my friend's life today"

"What's your name"

Shit, I had thought about cape names for a while. Hundreds of names were thought up and tossed away upon discovering that they were already taken. I said the first name on my mind, apparently, someone had already claimed it back in 2003 or something, but something but he was extremely obscure and judging from Cape-life expectancy, probably dead.

"Scurry" I said "Call me scurry"

He extended a hand "I owe you my life, if our paths were to ever cross again, I will not forget"

I shook it, I didn't do well with responding to grand statements like this "U-Uh, s-sure, nice helping you"

I began to walk away "Take care and good luck" I said.

"You too"

I faded into the suburbs that the asphalt led to, and in a moment, disappeared into the city's nooks and hidden paths with the case in my hand. I hoped Doolie was too caught up with the events to realize that I had stolen his gang's cash

I walked all the way back home. All the whilst pondering on what had happened in the five hours I had been awake. I caused a shootout, stole massive amounts of money that was to be exchanged for drugs and killed a man today.

The sun was up and shining now. Even though I had been awake for only five hours, I felt like I had been awake for twenty. I opened the door, and when I noticed mom's shoes missing, I came in without discretion, or care for silence. Mom would have left the house to work by this point. I felt joy at the fact that by the time she came back, she wouldn't have to work for a while.

Of course, there was always the issue of how I was going to explain how I came in possession of fifty thousand dollars, but I would figure it out later.

I made my way upstairs.

I put the case on my bed. I slowly and methodically clicked open the case, expecting the wads and wads of cash that I had murdered to procure. But…

"What the?"

The first thing that tipped me off was the sharp smell when I opened the case. It smelled medical, like vinegar. When I fully opened the case, a pungent acrid chemical smell wafted out as my brain was struggling to process what was in front of me.

Stacks and stacks of tightly sealed bags of powders. All vacuum packed with chinese writing onto them. All of them were an extremely bright shade of orange. I took one out, my hand trembling as I tried to read the label on one of them.

' 百分之百的浓度 - 鸦片 (龙火变种) - 警告，不要吸入没有稀释剂 - Product of the Republic of New Siam '

Realization snuck up on me like a sucker punch.

"Fuck"


	4. Chapter 4

1.X Undersiders

 **Username: thomascal**

 **Password :** *************  
** **  
** **[Enter]** **  
** **  
\- LOGGING IN -**

Welcome Agent Thomas Calvert (Class 7 access)  
 **  
** **OPENING FILE** **\- PRT FIELD REPORT (CASE ID:911415)**  
DATE: 2011/04/11  
Send by: Central Office  
Attack in the Boardwalks Area by LUNG. Attacks seem to have escalated from the Docks Area. Aggravators are suspected to be the same villain team responsible for the Ruby Dreams Casino Robbery (see Ruby D. Casino ID:090356). Investigations are being finalized as of 04/13.

Witnesses described witnessing intense flashes during the night. Fight is most likely to have escalated from the Docks Area. Most likely that LUNG was aggravated by the Criminal Parahuman group UNDERSIDERS (see Ruby D. Casino ID:090356). By the time Protectorate heroes responded, LUNG was reported to be around 20 feet tall. Heroes at the scene compared the fight more akin to fighting an Endbringer rather than a cape. In the ensuing fight, what seemed to be Dogs, now identified as HELLHOUND's mastered minions attacked both LUNG and other Protectorate heroes at the scene. LUNG was subdued and brought into custody by the arrival of EIDOLON and LEGEND.  
 **  
LUNG / Identity Currently Unverified - CURRENT STATUS - PRT CUSTODY** LUNG is currently in PRT Custody, slated for transference to the Baumann Parahuman Containment Facility, convoy is currently being organized by Agent Calvert.

 **HELLHOUND / Rachel Lindt - CURRENT STATUS - PRT CUSTODY** HELLHOUND ( see Mainsford Case ID:041231) has sustained major third degree burns from Lung. Treatment and recovery has been prioritised by Agent Calvert. Slated for the Baumann Parahuman Containment Facility upon recovery from comatose state. Notes : Her minions or what remains of them have been transferred to the investigations department for examination on her powers.

 **GRUE/ Brian Laborn - CURRENT STATUS - PRT CUSTODY** GRUE is currently in PRT custody, associates and family have been informed. Trial for his case is still under assessment. Notes : As of now, 04/15 2:05AM, currently pleading for pardon in turn for Probationary Wards Membership - Endorsed by Agent Calvert  
 **  
REGENT/ Identity Currently Unverified - CURRENT STATUS - Unknown** Search Warrant prioritized by Agent Calvert after new evidence has been found linking him/her to Heartbreaker (see Heartbreaker/Nikos Vasil ID:142698) Notes : PRT Canada and the Canadian authorities have already been notified. Information relating to REGENTis now under Class 5 access.  
 **  
TATTLETALE/ Identity Currently Unverified - CURRENT STATUS - Unknown** Search Warrant halted on grounds of expense and impracticality. **OPENING FILE** **-**

 **FIELD CASUALTY REPORT (CASE ID:911415)**  
Sent by: Logistics Division **  
**

**Field Agents:**

Field Agent Dennis McConroy - Immolation  
Field Agent John Meyers - Immolation  
Field Agent Corey Smitheson - Immolation  
Parahuman Brute Specialist Harry Thomas - Immolation  
Operating Agent Stephen Braun - Tear in Cartoid Artery (DNA linked to one of Hellhound's Dogs)

 **Capes:**

Protectorate Cape : Challenger - John Mcreary - Immolation  
Protectorate Cape : Dauntless - Miklos Alexandropoulos - Crushed by falling Debree  
Protectorate Cape : Triumph - Rory Christner - Crushed to death by Lung  
PRT affiliated Cape : Lady Photon - Sarah Pelham - Immolation  
PRT affiliated Cape : Manpower - Neil Pelham - Immolation  
PRT affiliated Cape : Brandish - Carol Dallon - Immolation  
PRT affiliated Cape : Laserdream - Mauling (DNA linked to one of Hellhound's Dogs)

 **Equipment:**

2 PRT Standard Anti Brute Transport Vehicles  
1 PRT Standard Issue Bike

 **Financial:**

Estimated 32.250.000 dollars in Damages.  
Heavy infrastructure damage to the Boardwalks

 **Civilian:**

Estimated 34 civilians, investigations to confirm further deaths caused indirectly currently underway **  
**

**OPENING FILE** **\- PRT MEDICAL REPORT (CASE ID:911415)**  
Sent by: Medical Department

*In order of Severity  
 **CASE - HELLHOUND/Rachel Lindt  
CONDITION UPDATE - STABLE**

DIAGNOSIS -

Major third degree burns on the right side of upper body and face, with second degree burns covering more a considerably large area of her body.

Orbital cavity has collapsed with major cranial trauma

Right arm has been amputated from the elbow down to prevent infection and necrosis

Right Leg has been broken at 13 points, currently held together with wiring

Several Broken Ribs, a broken sternum, the manubrium has ruptured the trachea. Currently surviving on external artificial lungs and heart for oxidization

G. Trochanter on the right side has been fractured. Hipbone fractured at several different points.

 **Note:** Panacea has volunteered to assist in Recovery  
 **  
CASE - LUNG  
CONDITION UPDATE - STABLE**

 **DIAGNOSIS -** Currently heavily sedated, almost two gallons of liquid Chloroform are being injected into his bloodstream on an hourly basis, We don't have any data on how long it takes for Lung to revert back to his original state, but we believe the de-transformation process is being hampered by the anaesthetics, and vice versa

Lung is already beginning to dig into stock anaesthetics. Heavy duty elephant tranquilizers have been requested by the medical division. The Medical Department requests that proper Heavy Duty elephant tranquilizers be procured, the last thing we need is another case of a brute waking up from anaesthesia.

Otherwise, his healing factor has taken care of the rest, the first hour he had been taken in, the body began to expel a large tooth, 7 inches in height (upon further DNA testings, linked to one of Hellhound's dogs) and 7.65 Parabellum rounds.

 **Notes:** Lung's body used his bones as a sort of organic scaffolding where his muscles began to grow over his body. pinky layer of dermis covered damaged patches of his body before being covered in a layer of skin. Recorded footage has been sent to the PRT Medical Department in order to gain a better insight into the science of healing factors. Footage is available for anyone with Class 3 Access, or a permission slip by the Medical Division

The medical division have also procured samples of Lung's bone marrow, blood, teeth, skin, fat, muscle and spinal fluid to be sent to the Investigations Department, and the Medical Department for study.

 **CASE - GRUE  
CONDITION UPDATE - STABLE**

 **DIAGNOSIS -** Numerous second degree burns on shoulder and chest, fractured wrist and several broken fingers. Minor head trauma.

 **OPENING FILE** **\- PRT CUSTODY REPORT (CASE ID:911415)**  
Sent by: Department of Parahuman Justice

*In order of importance, LUNG, HELLHOUND and GRUE  
 **LUNG -** Currently being prepared for transport to Baumann Parahuman Containment Center, transport will take place in 6 days time.

 **-On charges of:** Murder in the first Degree, Murder in the Second Degree, Illegal Border Crossing, Arson, Vandalism, Theft, Robbery, Assault, Battery, Procuring Prostitution, Smuggling Class A Narcotics into border, Smuggling Undocumented Immigrants into Borders, Extortion , Fraud, Asset to Drug Manufacturing, Assault on PRT operatives, Racketeering, Murder of PRT operatives, Illegal Betting, Assault and Violent Battering of State Approved Cape, Resisting PRT warranted Arrest, Damage to Public Property, Damage to Private Property, Damage to Public Property,

 **HELLHOUND -** Trial regarding HELLHOUND pending current state of health, but will commence one recovered.

 **-Charges include:** Murder in the First Degree (See Mainsford Case ID:041231), Battery, Assault, Resisting PRT warranted arrest, Assault on PRT operatives, Robbery, Theft, Vandalism, Three cases of unregistered dogs, Murder of PRT operative, Murder of State Approved Cape.

 **GRUE -** Trial is set for Wednesday evening 4:20pm

 **-Charges include:** Battery, Assault, Resisting PRT warranted arrest, Assault on PRT operatives, Robbery, Theft, Two cases of Vandalism

 **END OF REPORT - FURTHER UPDATES WILL BE NOTIFIED IN FUTURE EMAILS**

 **LOGGING OUT - thomascal (Class 7 Access)**


	5. Chapter 5

1.Y - The Electric Jew

The door slowly creaked open on its own. I walked through it, lead by a security guard by a chain that was attached to my handcuffs, which were a notch too tight in my opinion. But oh well, I guess Maximum Security prisons weren't designed for comfort.

The room itself was quite nondescript. I saw a box on top of a table, and a door opposite to the one I went through. The guard undid my shackles. These were the new fancy types that you needed a biometric scan to open. But honestly, given time, I could probably crack them in three minutes tops without alerting the overall security system.

But that bitch Dragon would probably still catch me somehow. But she was playing a different game to the rest of us. It wasn't a fair fight when your only weapons were a processor and a keyboard yet the enemy could control the fabrics of the internet and call in government mandated airstrikes. Which Dragon could, given the circumstances. I knew that better than anybody.

The guard finished opening the handcuffs. He then began opening the box that lay on the table. I was immediately beset by a wave of nostalgia and weariness when I laid my eyes on the contents of the box, it was all the shit they took from me when they stuffed me into this shithole all those years ago, minus a some things, quite a lot of things.

"Personal Items that have been considered a security threat have been confiscated and will not be returned until overall threat rating has been assessed at the end of your probationary period" he said without emotion, like this was the umpteenth time he was going through this procedure.

Well, that was shit.

That probably meant that around thirteen thousand dollars worth of electronics, computer parts and hardware would be inaccessible to me for around ten years. And that coupled with the fact that they would most likely blacklist me from buying anything IT related in the foreseeable future meant that I would be severely handicapped from the get go.

No biggie, who said I didn't like a challenge.

I took out a black beanie from the box. It was pretty nondescript, except for the pixelated skull that had been hastily stitched into the fold. It was the present I got for my thirteenth birthday from my older brother who had taught me the art of hacking in the first place. I then took out a dusty old hoodie.

Damn, 7 years being unworn and stuffed in a box had done a number on the jacket. The graphic and the writing was barely legible, but you could make it out, barely. It was a cartoon of a hockey mask with a machete, with the words 'C0DE K1LL3RS' over it. And under it was my screen name printed in big bold blocky letters.

 **3l3ctricj3w** . Yes, I was 11 when I came up with it.

The door on the other wall opened slowly "As of now, March 15th, you are released on probation. This does not mean you are a fully free citizen. Your rights and responsibilities as a Probationary member of society is outlined to you in the personalized pamphlet that will be sent to you in your place of residence" the guard said, retreating back into the prison, leaving me to my own thoughts.

With the hoodie and cap on, garishly mismatching the orange prison jumpsuit, I walked out, taking my first step as a free man, in five years.

My name is Moisey Shazif, and I was sent here at the tender age of 16 for attempted cyberterrorism.

Though, to really explain the story, I would probably have to start some years before then.

I was born to an Orthodox Jewish family in the wealthier parts of west Brockton. My older brother, Ari was an extreme IT nerd who spend almost every single day except saturday on his computer coding and programming. And he would have coded on saturdays too, if it hadn't been for our psychotic Jewish parents who used to shut off all electricity in the house on the Sabbath.

Ari was diagnosed with autism at a young age, so for a majority of his life, computers and me were his only friend.

He was fascinating to watch as a kid. He would play videogames on the family's aged HYPERsystems Classic, and once he finished them, he decode them just for fun and homebrew his own videogames. He began coding his own games at the age of seven.

And just from watching the screen over his shoulder whilst he worked, I was able to learn a lot of computing. Though as I came to learn, my talents weren't in the creation of codes, it was breaking into them.

By the time I was five, I was cracking into his computer every other day to play the Daria Roleplaying Game, the Rugrats' First Person shooter adventure, Super Jew Fighter, or any other games he programmed.

When he caught me, he didn't reprimand me, instead, he fostered this talent inside me, until the time I was ten, when I hacked a billboard on Main Street to portray a ghastly message that inflamed the locals so much they had to take it down.

Poopie Poopie Butt Butt. Every week they called in an IT technician to correct it, every week, I changed it back to Poopie Poopie Butt Butt, well, until they tore the thing down, of course.

My brother didn't find it as funny, however. When I told him I did it, he sat me down, and told me something that stuck with me forever. ' _Punishment for the deserving is the act of a hero, Punishment for those not, is the act of a fiend_ '

Of course, my astonishment at my brother's profoundness was lessened by the fact I came to discover he stole the line from a late 90s police procedural called Officer Butch Thorpe. But still, I treat it something akin to a Hacker Code, if I ever had one.

But all of this was before the Golden Age of the Internet. What was the Golden Age? It was when the internet became the internet as we knew it.

Who caused it? Nobody knows. Why did they do it? Nobody knows. The only thing that people seem to reach a consensus on is that it happened in 2002 and ended in 2005.

In those short 3 years. A flood of art, music, talent and culture flourished over the untamed wilds of the internet. This was made better by the incredible broadband speed everyone mysteriously gained. Everyone was free to be who they wanted to be.

My brother's work flourished in this environment. The games that he put up online were played by hundreds of thousands of people. He loved it, he loved the idea that his games made somebody happy somewhere.

And while he pursued a more creative craft, I pursued a more … morally ambiguous one. I became an online hacker. At first, I used my powers to bully and troll people for fun, but eventually, I began to hack more, intolerable people.

Racists, sexists, anti-semites. I began to hack them like a lumberjack on steroids. Eventually, I garnered the attention of a local grey hat hacker ensemble called the 'C0DEK1LL3RS'.

We were the vigilante outlaws of the wild west, Digital Robin Hood and his merry men, grey hatted seekers of justice who revealed corporate criminals, corrupt politicians, gangs and anybody we deemed fit to receive our righteous retribution.

The list of people we got convicted stretched a three page long file, and I'm proud to say the Electric Jew was responsible for putting an eighth of the names there.

It was perfect. The internet was perfect. Was it untamed? Yes, Was everybody that hung out there model humans? No. But the potential and implications was far out, as in potentially-change-the-fabrics-of-our-society far out. It wasn't always perfect, but whenever it was, you saw a glimpse at the best of humanity. Of what we could achieve if we weren't constrained by things like establishments and society.

But it ended.

In 2005, the internet was slowly butchered by this new cape called Dragon, who received the mantle from the mysterious cape that created the Golden Age. She began to regulate people's broadband speeds, created new rules and regulations on what you could and couldn't do. What could and couldn't exist.

In a span of 3 months, she burned around 60-65% of the internet to the ground. People's dreams, livelihoods and aspirations, gone. For what? Copyright infringements on work created out of passion that nobody profited from, Supposed 'Anti-Protectorate Messaging' that were just criticisms of capes who had done questionable shit. Social Movements that were getting people to mobilize were ended for 'Inciting Social Disorder'.

We called this the Great Burning of 05, it was the digital equivalent of the Burning of Library of Alexandria.

Years worth of music, art, writing, thought, creativity and videos were destroyed in the Great Burning of 05. My brother was hit hard. 3 years of work, gone.

Plus, his breadth of work had violated almost 70 active copyrights, so he was fined 190 thousand dollars and sentenced to 5 years in prison. He had been 18 at the time, but was still a child at heart.

He killed himself before the trial could start.

The day I opened his door and found his body hanging from the ceiling by an extension cord, I swore to myself, I would end Dragon, no matter what it cost me.

But it was hard fighting an invisible yet omnipresent enemy. So, I started small. DDoS attacks on affiliated websites and doxing the crooks she had working for her, as it was impossible to dox her.

But in a few years, it escalated to the point I was pinpointed her node towers, finding them in the real world and blowing them up with improvised explosives I learned how to make during the golden age.

I soon got enough notoriety as a domestic terrorist that I gained the attention of a group called the Dragonslayers, they were cool with me, our goals aligned for the most part. So I began working alongside them. When they deemed me trustworthy enough, they sent one of theirs to come down to Brockton to talk to me IRL.

He told me everything. Dragon's true nature, Dragon's true capabilities.

We went on many attacks together after that. Until I fucked up by getting too big for my boots. I told the Dragonslayers my plans for the biggest attack I planned in my life. If it had succeeded, it would have essentially neutered Dragon by deactivating her alongside the internet. The internet would eventually restart, but she wouldn't. I would make sure of it.

The plan was too big, too risky. They began considering me a liability, and a week before I went on with the attack, they snitched to the FBI about me.

The FBI found me within hours with the assistance of Dragon. It had been the most stressful moment of my life. I was able to delay them by sending their feed false addresses, scrambling their audio and activating false protocols. But it was all delaying the inevitable.

And within hours, the SWAT was knocking my door, yelling on the top of their lungs that they had the authority to shoot. They did, and I was interred into the Brockton Bay General Hospital with three bullets in my stomach.

But when I woke up, I felt like, something was … off. Actually, on the contrary, I felt like something was 'on'. I slowly began to realize that I was hearing the internal computer of my life support machine.

Yes, I had triggered. I could 'hear', or 'feel' the inner workings of computers, and control them to some degree. I eventually deduced that this applied to anything with intelligence, like humans and animals, and even mosses and plants, but my 'connection' with them was incredibly weak, and my control over them was negligible at best.

It just 'felt' the most natural with computers.

Of course, I tried to hide this ability as best as possible. Even without a superpower, they considered me a large threat enough that they threw me into a Maximum Security Penitentiary at 16.

Who knows what kind of pit they'd throw me in if they figured out I had tricked their Parahuman Detection Machine into giving them a negative result?

Inside the prison, the first two years were spent in solitary confinement due to the fact I was a minor. It was pure torture, I would have gnawed my fingers off if I didn't have my power to experiment, test and train for two years.

When I was released into the prison, I used my power to establish myself as a valuable asset to the gangs that none of them would want to damage. I used my power to send messages and information, sneak in items and even deactivate security systems for a price.

Before I arrived, there had been no recorded breakouts in the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center, after I arrived, there was 13. And they could never link any of it to me.

Of course, I stayed away as far as I could from the gang shit in prison. I calculated that if I portrayed myself as incredibly responsible and trustworthy, hacked the systems to lower my threat rating, used my status as a young offender and also blackmailed a few guards, then the soonest I could get off was in 5 years with probation.

Correction, I could get out any damn time I wanted, but my name was on Dragon's radar, and if she ever caught a whiff of me committing an illegal act relating to computers, she would unleash hellfire on me and break my fingers to prevent me from typing ever again.

And if she discovered I was a parahuman? Then the Kill-order, or at the very least, a sentencing to the Birdcage were very real possibilities.

Much safer to play it legit, keep my cards close and wait it out.

And so I did, for 5 fucking years, I waited. And now I was free. Disowned by both parents, not a penny to my name and a superpower under my belt. I had big plans and this time, I planned to act out on them.

It had been a few weeks since I've been released. I built myself a PC out of spare parts I was able to get through more, morally ambiguous, manners of acquiry. In the first week, it had been shocking how many houses had their systems computerized. It made my job a fucking cakewalk.

Now, why did I need a PC even though I could hack things with my mind? Well, even though my hackvision (I had gotten tired of calling it 'my power') was ridiculously strong in an Urban, computerized environment. I was god. But it did have limitations, first was that it only worked with line of sight, and hacking sometimes involved breaching a computer thousands of miles away.

Second was that I was still a human, powered by food and water, so with every successive usage of my power, I got fatigued. I was more perceptible to fucking up. But a machine powered by electricity will never get tired. Besides, if I used my powers in conjunction with a PC, I was literally a ghost in the machine.

But a hacker may have the skills, he may have the attitude, he may have the hardware, but the only thing that seperated a successful hacker from the rest was reputation, and presence. And even though I had both in spades during the Golden Age, it had died when I went to the pen for 5 years, and to everybody, I was just another up and coming hacker.

That, and combined with the fact that I needed some money was why I couldn't afford to get picky with jobs.

So, I connected my computer to the BlackBoard, the only bastion of unregulated internet that remained. But even it was bastardised now. It used to be a gathering place for hackers to join together and fight corporate titans, but now it only existed to take jobs from gangs and the corporate cunts we loathed.

It was strange, seeing names like M1rAgE and W4Ck0, hackers who used to go on huge corporate raids taking job offers from this gang and that. It was like discovering that your childhood heroes now sold crack on your corner.

But yeah, well, at times, it's hard to realize and remember, but these were all people, with lives, families and reputation to think about. And we all needed to bend to money at some point.

I scoured over the blackboard to find the most well paying job, and found that it was the one that nobody wanted to take. It was a job posted by some anonymous dudes who had some heroin stolen from him and wanted it back. He was paying 5000$ for the effort.

Which wasn't enough to fund some of the stupid shit I had been planning in prison, but it was a start.

Easy enough job, I guess. But it was a stepping stone to move on to bigger fish.

I posted on a messaging board for the first time in 5 years.

"Ar1'sGh05T : I'll take up the job".


	6. Chapter 6

2.1

I awoke, or rather, I became aware of my surroundings.

Ever since the day I triggered, I was never able to fall completely into sleep. If I stayed up too long, I would get tired and pass out, but even if I was unconscious, there was always a part of me that was completely awake within one rat or another.

This meant that even in the best of days, even if I slept a full eight hours, I never felt completely rested. It always felt like I had just accidentally passed out and that when I woke up, I was just coming to.

Of course, I was unable to sleep for an entirely different reason this week, a few more layers of eye bags decorated my face than usual. It was because of that smell, that acrid, vinegary smell that wafted from under my bed. The smell that would not go away no matter how many fresheners and colognes I sprayed.

Whenever one of the noses within the walls picked up that scent, I was reminded of the night that was still freshly burnt into my memory. I remembered it all, the blood, the bullets, the yells, the screams … the overpowering feeling of pleasure as I dismembered a man's leg and watched as he was shot in the neck, as I stood above him, basking in glory as I stared the life slowly drain out of his eyes.

The true weight of what happened hadn't really settled in my stomach until the day after, I was still riding the wave of adrenaline and the intoxication of victory. But then it settled, and it settled like a rock in my stomach. I immediately had a panic attack, which I was forced to drag myself out of by imparting my consciousness onto the rats.

It had become routine for me to have at least some of my consciousness within rats in my vicinity to become emotionally stable enough to walk without having my legs turn to jelly or break out into a bout of tears.

Emotional stability was nice, but deep down, I knew that this was wrong. I had to pull back on my power, that night had shown that very clearly.

See, once my consciousness began to blend in with those of rats', morality became somewhat … ambiguous. I swear on my mother's life that If I had been completely sober back then, I wouldn't have even thought about initiating that bloodbath just to steal the case.

… the case.

I could still smell the undertone of vinegar in the air.

Me and my fucking luck.

At least if I had taken the right case, I could have justified it by bullshitting myself by telling myself it was to help mom, but now I'm just stuck with a case full of god-knows-what that I stole from god-knows-who.

At that moment, I was startled into alertness by some rumblings downstairs.

I wouldn't have heard it from my own, but it the vibrations from someone walking and dragging a chair, and the noise created from the actions were unignorable to a rat's ears. I couldn't hear these things in reality, of course, It was more like I was ,simulating, the likeness of these stimuli inside my brain, if that made sense.

I sent the white rat downstairs to check on the racket. And after coming out of a broken ventilation shaft and dropping onto the top of a refrigerator, I was greeting with the image of my mother, sitting in the kitchen.

She held a cigarette between two fingers, and judging from the half full ashtray, she had been smoking for a while. It was a strange thing to see. She had been so ardently anti-tobacco just a few years ago, she had even tried her darndest to drag my father to addiction therapy. Yet just a few months after he passed away, she picked up her first cigarette and never stopped. Sometimes she smoked a pack a day.

I wanted to talk with her about it, but I always stopped myself, she dealt with enough shit during the day, I didn't want to take away the only thing that gave her some satisfaction.

She was looking over a piece of paper, and to her right, she had a small stack of bills and coins.

I moved the rat silently around the countertops to get a closer look at the writings on the paper.

'Brockton Bay Central Bank

This is a letter to inform you that you have missed 5 successive monthly payments on the mortgage debt of the property. You have 2 month time span to come up with the remaining 43000$ before Brockton Bay Central Bank is forced to repossess the property at the address 6011 McCrae Avenue. To contact our Downtown Branch regarding management, time span extensions and payments, please call 604454523.

Thank you, and we look forward to working with you.

Brockton Bay Central Bank - For a better Brockton'

It was from this distance that I noticed the dead expression in mother's eyes, the kind that I was all too familiar with. The feeling of being trapped, the feeling of being boxed, forced to slog through life and all the shit it threw at you. That you were sinking deeper and deeper into a black abyss, and that would snuff out any life you had in you.

Some feelings couldn't be snuffed no matter how much of my conscious I put into rats, and the immense guilt I felt pierced through every layer of apathy I put between myself and my emotions.

It was this kind of guilt that had motivated me to steal the case in the first place, and it was this guilt that finally dragged me out of bed.

Fuck it, I had gone through enough shit to steal the case, might as well try to make something out of it.

⁂

I exited my room through a window in my bedroom. Even though my room was on the second floor of our house, my desire not to interact with mom during this time of day outweighed my desire not to climb down using a rusty piece of rain gutter.

As soon as I was outside, I began walking to Downtown Brockton.

My mental map of the overall city had some noticeable holes in it, especially around the boardwalks area. When I got a glimpse at the boardwalk on my way, I understood why.

The entire boardwalk area was simply not there, what remained was a mass of charred buildings and debris, all cordoned off by distinctive yellow PRT tape. Masked and armored PRT officers guarded the site and I was able to spot a few guys in distinctive hazard suits rummaging around the wreck with weird metallic equipment.

I overheard some whisperings that the leader of the ABB, Lung had rampaged around here and killed several heroes. This was bad, even if you didn't pay much mind to the local cape scene, you would know that the power balance here between the Protectorate and the gangs were already severely offset. This was another blow to an already struggling local protectorate, where for every hero, there were at least two more villains.

I planned a detour around the area and eventually made my way to my destination.

The Brockton Bay Central Library.

I used to come to this place every week with my mother. It was a place of pleasant memories, and all of the shit that had been weighing on me seemed to wash off to be replaced by the familiar scent of old books and the resonant silence that rang throughout the library.

I couldn't wallow in nostalgia for long, so I made my way to the computer section, greeting the familiar face of the librarian along the way. I made sure to choose a computer that was in the back corner so I wouldn't have anybody snooping in on me.

I opened up the browser on the computer and was greeted with a newspage talking about the attack on the boardwalks by the leader of the ABB. I skimmed through it, apparently it had been instigated by a small group of villains called the Undersiders and the ensuing clash had killed several noteworthy heroes, including Dauntless, Triumph and Challenger.

Though the most harrowing news was revealed when I read that the almost half of the New Wave were killed in the attack by Lung. I read further and found out that the last founding member of the New Wave, Mark Dallon, or Flashbang had been found having committed suicide as of two days ago.

This was unsettling, the New Wave were almost as old as the Brockton Bay cape scene itself if you counted the Brockton Brigade, and having them disappear like that was tough. The whole city was in mourning.

I couldn't dwell on this all day. My session with the computer was half after finishing the article and I hadn't had a single of my questions about the Drug answered yet. So I brought out a notebook and began typing out the questions I had written down on it prior to leaving the house.

"What type of drug is it?"

I read through an article on drugs and narrowed it down to heroin, based on the odor and the look.

"Where did it come from?"

I couldn't reliably tell exactly where it came from, but it was most likely from the ABB since apparently almost 60% of all heroin that flowed into the US through the ABB from a Thai insurgency paramilitary called the 'Golden Coin' over a line in the ocean called 'The Golden Bow'. The rest came from other sources, the most notable being the 24% from various cartels in Mexico and South America, 8% from India, 4% from the former nation of Japan, 2% from various small opium growing operations in Europe and Canada.

The main entry point of heroin into the country was the east coast, with the ABB serving as the primary traffickers. It came into Brockton and spread to several other east coast cities like Boston and New York and trickled westward from there. Somewhat impressive considering that 60% of heroin that flowed into the states came through a gang with only two parahumans in it, no, wait three.

Apparently a new cape had been recruited into the ABB's fold a few weeks back, some demolition expert or something; I skimmed through the article.

I was surprised to find out that the Merchants were one of the only gangs in Brockton that barely imported any drugs at all. That was surprising, but on further reading, this was explained by the fact that they mostly manufacture their own drugs using easily obtainable chemicals.

In fact, the article claimed that any instances of the Merchants dealing with other gangs were extremely rare.

So what the hell did I see three nights ago? Merchants openly dealing with what seemed to be some guys from the ABB. Were they even from the ABB? I was confused.

Were they some ABB affiliated gang or something? No, couldn't be, the ABB's whole schtick was insularity and being a giant unified gang held together by two overpowering figures, no way there could be some other gang in the ABB's midst, selling heroin behind their back.

Or … perhaps there was a secret element within the ABB working against them? Maybe, but this was just speculation and I needed to get more answers before my session expired.

Now that I had gotten most of the background information I desired, I came to the brunt of the issue.

"How the fuck do I sell it"

I discovered that heroin was a more expensive drug than cocaine or any other substances partly because of the ABB's vice grip on the entire market, and unlike some other drugs, it had to cross seas to get here, all the whilst under the threat of discovery by guards and patrol boats. All of which added up to the price.

Which was all well and good, but it also meant that it was a harder drug to sell. How the fuck do I even begin to sell it though? I didn't even have a fuckin clue in the world.

There was a sneaking thought in the back of my mind. 'Why was I even doing this?'

Maybe I should just dump the case into the ocean, lose the house in two months time, forget about everything, head back to school and live that painful fucking routine until I finally decide I had enough and jump off a bridge somewhere.

No, I couldn't give up this easily. I began to look up "How do you deal heroin?". It was dumb but I had exhausted my options at that point.

A red "RESTRICTED CONTENT" came upon the screen, and I was left to stew in my dilemma. I drummed my fingers on the lacquer wood desk and the monitor went black due to unuse.

I leaned back into the chair and stared into the monitor.

I then began to notice something small, the lens seemed to be adjusting somehow, the aperture kept adjusting and readjusting. I stared into the camera and then-

*Flash*

My eyes were temporarily blinded by the sudden light and then-

A picture of my face had been the wallpapered into the home screen. I read the text overlay that appeared over my face, growing more frantic with every passing second.

13400 Twig Street Parking Lot 10:00PM, tomorrow - Bring the Heroin -

I scribbled out the address onto my notebook, all the whilst being stared by the webcam, someone was there, someone was watching me, and somebody knew about the case.

The computer screen went black as my session expired.

I felt bare, I felt vulnerable. I wanted to yell and scream but good library etiquette had been drilled into my brain from an early age.

I thanked the librarian on my way out through gritted teeth and walked slowly outside, trying the repress the anxiousness I felt. I looked around, and sensed with my rats for a trace of anybody on the roof or anything. Nothing turned up.

I began to walk home, aware of the knowledge that somebody out there knew, and could easily destroy me.


	7. Chapter 7

2.2

The clock on the wall struck 9:00 as the coffee machine whirred quietly as a new cup of black liquid poured into the glass pot. This was the fourth pot of coffee I had drank; I had not slept.

It took a minute or two for the coffee-maker to fill the pot; I had bought the thing second hand for three dollars. Once the pot was more or less full, I grabbed it and went back to the attic.

The attic was the only part of the house I was sure that would remain undisturbed, it wasn't used for anything except for storing shit that would otherwise have taken too much effort to throw out. Like the decorations for various birthday parties, an old unused computer monitor, broken toys, bikes and some other knick knacks from over the years that reminded me of a time that hurt to remember.

I poured myself a cup from the pot of coffee in and sipped on it slowly. My jittering hands spilled a few scalding drops onto my hand, but at this point, I was too sleep deprived, stressed and caffeine addled to muster up the energy to cry out in pain.

On the wall was a page ripped from my notepad and pinned there with a thumbtack, the contents of which were causing me so much undue stress.

"10:00PM - Twig Avenue Parking Lot - Bring the Heroin"

I took another sip from the cup and settled it down. I needed to get back to the work at hand.

I looked to the project I had been working on. My haphazard attempt at making body armour, although the finished product looked more like an horrifying inbred fusion between a leather couch, a bib and a bundle of scotch rather than anything designed to protect the body.

But it was all I could manage under the time constraints and material at hand. It was made of a large piece of leather that I had cut from an unused couch in the attic, which I had cut into a close approximation of a baby's bib.

I had then stitched some padding from some unused yoga mats onto the whole 'cuirass', and had scotch taped a sizeable ceramic plate onto where I assumed my vitals to be.

It weighed me down considerably when I wore it. But getting weighed down by twenty pounds or so was far better than being shot through the stomach, or worse, somewhere vital.

If I had learned anything from the shootout, was that even though I could command enough rats to drown men in, I was just as vulnerable to a bullet as the next fool with a superpower. The memories of Howe bleeding out from a hole in his gut was still freshly burned into my mind, as was the smell of his blood leaking onto the ground.

I took my shirt off, put the cuirass on, and then put on the shirt over it; the shirt was loose enough that the cuirass couldn't be seen through it. I then put on a leather jacket that I had dug out from the attic. It was an old fashioned one, made of thick leather designed for resilience and durability, rather than the fashion … I remember seeing old photos of dad in it.

Even though he hadn't worn it for years, even before he died, it still kept his familiar musk. It brought me back to a time when everything was easy. Back when I still had a father I could cling to no matter how tough things got, but that was then, and this is now.

I needed to be hard. I needed to be tough for this ordeal. Even though the man whose odour belonged to was long gone, it still gave me a little strength, strength to pull myself and my mother through.

I wondered what dad would have thought of me right now. Would he have understood?

I grabbed the unmarked black case of heroin before I became too muddled in conscience, and began heading my way to the parking lot.

⁂

I could feel the vibrations of the engines on the bus on my skull as I rested my head against the window. I was sweating through my teeth, knowing that the case I had put under my seat could have easily land me in prison.

Several police patrol cars casually rolling by did not help my state of mind. This added with the extreme warmth of the zipped up leather jacket meant that sweat seeped from my head like a fountain.

I had no way to make it all the way to Twig Avenue in an hour on foot, and since I didn't have the luxury of a car -I didn't even know how to drive one- I was forced to take public transport. My paranoia was on overdrive, but I did not let it get the best of me.

I used the time to think, think out a plan regarding the 'meeting' that would be taking place.

First of all, Twig Avenue was on the entire other end of the fucking city, a part that I had been completely been oblivious of. My mental map of that area was extremely sketchy, but peeks out the window had shown it to be an extremely derelict part of town, which lead to further paranoia.

What if he lead me to an abandoned part of town to shoot me? Fuck, that was a strong possibility, and one that sent my rational thinking out the window and sent me into a panic, I suppressed that.

Panicking would do me no good at this point, I had to plan around this, and plan good. I was dealing with an invisible enemy here that wanted this case from me.

Think, Taylor, Think.

I didn't get much time to do so, as the bus rolled to its last stop. I stepped out with the case. Observing the area, and making contact with the rats around the place to get a better idea of the area.

I put on a ski mask. I was sure that he already knew my face, but I was not willing to take chances, what if he had others there? What if the person I was about to meet was an associate of the person that sent me the message, and didn't know my face? Wishful thinking, but I was not willing to take chances, and wanted to be prepared.

I felt the phone in my pocket, it was mom's old phone, it had no service, but I could call emergency just in case.

And even though I hoped anything wouldn't happen that would require me to use it, I had a small kitchen knife in my back pocket, I didn't know what would be happening, but at least having a weapon gave me some sort of comfort.

I made my way to the meeting spot.

It was a desolate parking spot. No soul in sight, earshot or through my rats. If I were to be shot in the back of the head and left to rot, this would be the place to do it.

In the distance, I spotted a … figure, I could barely see him in the darkness, but he struck out against the shadow.

As I got closer, he turned to face me. I had difficulty seeing him, so I made use of a the surrounding rats' visions to form a somewhat complete picture.

It was a figure in a large jacket, with extremely hard to read writing on his back, Although that wasn't the most peculiar thing about him; it was the mask he wore.

It was a mask that covered most of his face excluding the eyes which were obscured by opaque glass, it was dull grey in color, and looked incredibly smooth. Closer inspection led to see that there were small indentations in the mask, I wondered what those were for before I got my answer.

His mask began to shine a bright neon blue that blinded me before it settled into pixelated image of a grinning skull that covered his face.

He began speaking, his voice heavily distorted and unnaturally deep, but that's wasn't what threw me off, it was what he said.

"Hello, Taylor", the figure said. My flow of thoughts had been paralyzed the moment my name came out of his mouth, it came out with particular emphasis, I subconsciously began to gather a horde of rats around the lot. How did he know my name? How the fuck did he know my goddamn name?

The turmoil in my mind was stopped by him continuing, his voice, seemingly pleased to have gotten such a visceral reaction from me.

"First of all, Taylor, throw out any phones or weapons you have in front of you, where I can see it"

I struggled to find the gumption to speak "I- I- don't have any"

"Is that so?"

Instantly, my phone began to buzz in my pocket. I took it out, text overlaid on the screen that read 'Don't lie to me, Taylor' I dropped it to the ground, more out of shock than of my own volition

"Throw your weapon to the ground, Taylor, I know you have one"

I hesitantly took my knife out and then dropped it onto the floor, it clanged as it hit the ground.

"Take off your mask, I know what you look like, it won't make a difference" he said, I hesitated, before taking the ski mask off, I felt vulnerable once I did, I felt the cold air on my face once more.

"Now then" he said, as he snapped his finger.

*snap* *BZZZT*

All of the lights surrounding the parking lot came to life as the assault of dozens or so lights pounding their way into my retina forced me to cover them with my hands. A few seconds afterwards, the lights died down, and I could see the figure in his full glory.

He had been wearing fingerless gloves, he wore torn jeans and some shoes that had gone out of style years ago. The man had been standing against a nondescript car. The car had a small white box on top of it.

"Where is the heroin, Taylor" I noticed several cameras that had been stuck to strange places were turned my direction, observing my every move.

I had never done well under pressure, and there weren't enough rats around to splurge my emotions into, so I began to speak "Wha-wha-what heroin" I said, noticeably shaky and scared

"What heroin" I said slightly more boldly.

"I don't want to play games. Taylor" the figure said, and as he said so, the white box came alive with light. It had been a projector, and its light pointed towards a wall nearby

"I know who you are, Taylor" he said, as the box projected my face onto the wall, it had been a photo I had taken for a school year book a few years ago back when I still cared

"I know which school you go to" Winslow showed up on the wall

"I know where you live" My house and its address shone

"I know your social security number" It flashed onto the screen

"Everything there is to know about you, I know" He said, his words were still sinking into my mind " And I know that you have something that belongs to me"

"I will repeat myself, Where. Is. the. Fucking. Heroin" He said, his voice amplifying in volume with each word.

I was silent.

"Possession of hard drugs fetch a lot of years, you know? Even for a fifteen year old like you. Not mentioning the fine of two hundred thousand dollars" he spoke. I maintained silence.

"I wouldn't be worried about the law, though, you are still a minor under the eyes of the law. No, I would worry about the gang that you stole from" he paused.

"They don't give a shit about age, it doesn't matter if you're five or fifteen, you will end up in some unmarked ditch somewhere out in the docks" he said, he seemed to be becoming more and more frustrated at my silence.

"Kid, listen to me, I saw your grades, you seem like a good kid. No use becoming a statistic just for a packet that you can't hope to sell. Just hand me the case and I will ensure that none of this shit can be traced back to you"

Silence ruled supreme for a second

"..." I couldn't see the face behind the mask, but his voice led me to believe that his patience had been running thin "I'm giving you an out, you better fucking take it for your own good"

I wanted to. I really wanted to. I could have given him the case and returned to my life. But then, why couldn't I bring myself to say it? No use lying to myself, I knew the reason.

It was that I couldn't. I can't go back to what it was like before. Even though taking the case had caused undue complications to my life, the alternative was … no, I can't go back to that. Even though deep inside, I knew that taking a briefcase full of heroin was morally wrong, it gave me some purpose, some guidance, some goal to work towards.

I wasn't going to hand it to this fucking bastard just because he told me to, besides, I had shed blood for this case.

"No" I said defiantly, my voice gaining gravity after I regained my backbone.

"Is that so" I heard "Well, that's a shame"

And suddenly, he drew one hand that had been inside a pocket for the whole conversation, drawing a small black pistol, and pointed it at me "Give me the fucking case"

Even though I had been staring into the blackness of the bore of the pistol, I wasn't scared.

This was the first time during this whole standoff when I didn't feel fear.

Because even though he held my life inside his pistol, I held his through a rat whose teeth had been around his carotid artery, needing only a thought to end his life.

He came to the realization and even through he wore a mask that obscured emotions. I could tell feel his heartbeat increase through the rat on his throat.

A trickle of blood made its way onto the rat's throat as he came to the same conclusion that I did.

If I were to die today, he would as well.


	8. Chapter 8

2.3

An entire minute passed, it was hard to stop the rat from gnawing its way into the figure's throat, his grip on the pistol had been getting progressively shaky. I commanded the rat to hold the rat in a tight clamp, but not too tight to accidentally burst his artery. After another tense minute passed by, It seems like he was coming to terms with the fact that this wouldn't be ending easily for him.

"Shit" he said, his voice a sinister deep pitch "Wouldn't have bet on you being a fucking cape" his mask changed to the picture of a frowning face with crosses for eyes.

"Can we talk? Just get this fucking thing off my neck" the picture changed into an arrow pointing to the rat that was on his neck.

"Throw the gun to the ground first" I said

"But-" "Throw your gun to the floor or I will kill you" I said, my voice, full of conviction, the kind of conviction that suggested I would carry on with my threat. I didn't know if I would, but it was hard enough to keep the rat from going feral at the taste of blood already.

After some time, the figure relented, he threw the pistol onto the ground, the pistol clanged against the cement before it slid near me, I slowly walked to the pistol and then picked it up.

I then used another rat to sniff out if he had any other guns on his body. Guns had a very distinctive sulfuric smell. I couldn't detect anything, so I let the rats drop to the floor and then scurry away before he could spot them. My ability wasn't something he knew about, It was my only edge here, I had to maintain it.

I held the gun in my hands and then pointed it at him, he seemed not at all worried that I was holding a pistol at his chest

"You can drop the gun if you want, it's got no bullets in it, besides, you're a cape right? I'm sure you can handle me without a gun just fine"

I kept the gun pointed at him, I then shot the gun at the ground expecting a bang, yet got only the click of a hammer hitting an empty space where a bullet would be. It had been empty as he said, I put the gun in my backpocket.

"Why are you looking for me? Are you a part of the ABB?" I asked

"No, I'm not ABB, just a contractor, this was just a job"

"A job for what?" I asked

"To find you"

"Why?" I asked

"For the case of heroin that you stole"

"How?" I asked

He stayed silent before speaking up "How did I find you? … Hacking"

"I'm a good hacker" he said, the picture on his face changing into a few numbers, '2337', I didn't know what that meant.

"The methods I used aren't replicable, you know? I doubt anyone else could have ever found you if they tried. Let me go and this will all be water under the bridge"

"Why should I let you go? You could just tell on me to the ABB the moment you're out of my sight" I said, trying to put on a cold demeanor.

"Because I don't do kids like that, I could have sent the ABB a picture of your face and still gotten paid for it, but I didn't because I don't do kids like that" he said with a level of sincerity that came off even through his mask and the voice changer.

"..."

"Ok, listen, kid, It's obvious you stole the heroin because you needed a little cash. Hear me out, after you give me the heroin, and once I've gotten paid, I'll split the cash with you, one thousand dollars to call your very own"

"It's not enough" I said, feeling a little disgusted with myself at the fact that I was effectively extorting this man for money

"Ok, how much" he said, a veneer of desperation to his voice

"Thirty thousand" I blurted out

"Thirty- Fucking Thirty Thousand? Kid, are you fucking kidding me? Here I am trying to save your fucking life, and you ask me for ten times the amount of money I have? Are you seriously going to risk your life for a goddamn packet or heroin or some shit?" he said, he grew more exasperated by the second, the blue of his mask changing into a red angry face "What the fuck do you have that's worth risking your life for?"

"A case full of thirty thousand dollars worth of heroin" My mouth moved before I could shut myself up, for some reason, I didn't want this guy to think I was risking my life for nothing

What I had said seemed to make him go silent.

"How much" He said, as if I had just said the oddest thing in the world

"Thirty, thousand" I said, deliberately slow. I then commanded the rats to bring the case to my side, and in a short while, three dozen or so rats scuttered near me with a black inconspicuous looking case on top of their backs.

I took the case and then opened it very slowly for him to see.

"Holy fucking shit" He said, the sight of the heroin seemed to make him freeze, the picture displayed a pixelated surprised face.

The silence held for a while, the case felt unnaturally heavy as he looked at it "What are you planning to do with it" he said

"Sell it" I said, still trying to maintain my front, he looked at me, like he saw straight through it

"Let me guess, you don't know how to?"

There wasn't any reason to even pretending like I did. I nodded to his question.

A thick silence settled in. With only the humming of the streetlights to provide sound.

"Hear me out" he said like he was testing the waters before jumping in "Here is my offer, I will help help you sell off that case, in exchange"

"I want a third of the money to come out of it, Think hard on the offer, I'll give you a minute to back out, if you want"

I thought. Was I trusting this guy too much? What if he was bullshitting me all along and all of this was him holding me off until he could run away and tell on me to the ABB. I thought on it long and hard. Fuck it, I was too deep in to back out now

"Ok" I said "I'll work with you to sell it off"

"Good, take this" he said as he threw a small black object in my direction, I grabbed it and observed it, it was a flip-phone, an older blocky model that you wouldn't see much of nowadays

"It's an off-grid phone" he said "It's a direct line to me, I'll contact you through it once I have everything sorted out"

"Ok" I said as he began to walk back to his car. He entered the car and started it. Before he drove off, I realized I had lost track of time and looked to my watch

Fuck! The last bus would have already left by now. It was either walking back at this time of night or waiting until the morning bus which would come in nine hours, neither were an appealing option to me. I heard the motor of the car before me start, shaking me out of my pondering. It gave me an idea, perhaps it wouldn't work, but fuck if I don't at least try.

"Hey" I said, drawing his attention. I tried to make my voice sound as resolute as possible, but it only ended up sounding shaky and weak "Do you mind if I can- can get a ride to the city center?"

He looked at me with what I assumed was a confused expression. A question mark lit up on his mask "How did you even get here?" he asked

"Bus" I said "The next one doesn't come until six in the morning"

He sighed through the mask, he opened the door on the other side of the car "Get in"

I got in with wariness, I was vulnerable inside the car, after all, there was only the one white rat "Where do you want me to drop you?"

"The General Library" I said "The one by the market?" I nodded

The inside of the car looked like it was hastily taken apart and put back together, I could see exposed wires and boxes in the leg space. A screen was installed into the console of the car, even that had exposed wires. When the car came alive, I heard a dozen fans begin spinning around me.

"Listen, kid, I'm sorry if I got a little personal back there, it was just business, nothing personal. If anything, it was only because I wanted you to give up the case with no fuss. And since we've reached a little something of a partnership, I figure if it were best if we were at least on equal footing" He said, he fell silent, like he was expecting me to speak up.

"Oh … uh … I'm sorry I almost killed you" I said.

"... No sweat, kid" I could smell him sweating. The car sped by on the empty streets, the wind whipped through my hair through the opened window.

Eventually, Brockton proper came into view, the abandoned buildings became replaced by barely functioning businesses, abandoned factories replaced by packed together tenements and housing projects, those who couldn't afford to live deeper into the city.

My awareness of the area increased exponentially as soon as we entered the residential area, there were much more rats here than any other parts of the city.

I commanded all the rats I could to follow the car, the least I could do for these people were making sure they wouldn't have to deal with fucking rats in their cupboards on top of all the shit they dealt with daily.

"Mind if I ask you a question" I heard from beside me "What do you need that much money for anyway?"

"..." That was a good question, one that I asked myself repeatedly ever since I've been in possession of the case. I began to formulate an excuse before I stopped myself, no, I should just tell the truth, based off of just how much he knew about me, it wouldn't be a stretch to know he knew my reasoning as well

"My dad …he passed away a few years ago … and It's been hard, too hard on my mother" I said.

"She'll die before she pays off all the debts, mortgages and bills on top of taking care of me" I said "if I make money, no matter how much I make … no matter how I make it, it will help. And I want to help" I said, my voice, rough with emotion by the end of it.

"Oh" he said. It was difficult to tell, and I might have even imagined it, but there was something in his voice, something that I would almost describe as sympathy. It meshed horribly with the figure of him I had in my mind; an uncaring all-knowing figure bent to destroy me … but feeling bad for me? No, it couldn't be, I threw the idea out of my mind before it could take root.

The car was awkwardly silent for a while. He coughed, which only served to make things that much more awkward.

"How did you come across that case anyway? You gang related?" he said, as soon as he noticed my face visibly change, he added "I'm not accusing you of anything here, just want to make sure I know as much as possible for this to go smooth"

"No … I took it, accidentally" I said, after a while.

"How do you ' _accidentally_ ' take a case of heroin?"

"There was a case of thirty thousands dollars, I took this one instead, accidentally"

"Let me guess, did you take it during a trade?"

"Yeah, I think so"

"Between who?"

"The Merchants" I said, this one I was sure of "... and the ABB … I _think_ "

"You think?"

"I don't know, they didn't _seem_ like the ABB"

Even if you didn't know shit about organized crime like me, you would still have known the basics about the gangs, just from living day-to-day here "The ABB wear red and green, right?" I said "These ones were wearing all grey"

"And dealing with Merchants, very much unlike them" he added.

He was extremely quiet for a second, his hands frozen on the wheel. I could feel the cogs in his mind turning and the metaphorical blocks falling into place.

All of a sudden, he took his hands off the wheel, reached into my glove compartment -which had opened by itself- and then pulled out a small laptop. He opened the thing on his lap, and then began typing, paying no attention to the wheel, or the way the car was heading.

"The car- "The thing drives by itself, don't bother with it" he said. I looked to the window, and to my amazement, the car was driving by itself, making turns at the right corners and slowing down when appropriate.

I looked to beside me where he was typing furiously on the laptop. This went on for a solid minute before his fingers stopped pistoning at the keyboard. He looked to me and spoke in excitement, a very odd thing to hear from the unnaturally deep mask.

"Well, Taylor, it seems we're in luck"

"What?"

"I just traced the job posting that led me to you back to the people that posted it, that lead me to a member of the ABB, by the name of Genji Browning" My mind flashed back to the smoking pistol that started the shootout.

"I looked through his profile, details, incarcerations, family, associations, the whole shebang … and it seems like Mr. Browning is associated with several other members of the ABB, all of whom are a member of a secretive online group, wholly composed of ABB members, they call themselves the ... Hui Long, or the Grey Dragons"

"Now, the the group's makeup is diverse, filipinos, south asians and mixed asians, but there is a trend here, none of them are fully eastern-asian, the kind of people that the ABB is mainly made up of, you know, Chinese, Japanese, Korean" he said

"This fact and the fact that the group is so hidden leads me to believe that this is a splinter group within the ABB made up of people who aren't the east asian ABB majority"

"How did you figure all this out?" I asked, it had only been a four minutes, no matter how fast he typed, him finding all of this out in such a small amount of time seemed extremely unlikely, unless there was another factor in play here.

"I'm a good hacker" he said innocently "But that's beside the point here, the point is, this is _perfect_ for us"

"Perfect, how?"

"This is perfect because now we have a cover"

"And why is that important?" I asked

He sighed, and then looked to me "Listen, I don't know how if you were around brockton in '05 or not, but have you heard of the Kurotora?" I shook my head, the name felt familiar though.

"Ok, listen up, back in the early two-thousands, the ABB were no names, laughing stocks with not a single street to their name. The big boys knockin about back then were the Kurotoras, they controlled the majority of the drug trade. They had a few capes in their midst and did reasonably well for themselves, of course, compared to the games nowadays, they were pretty small fish"

"Now, in '05, everything changed, that's when Lung hit the shores of Brockton Bay, and he announced his presence known by fighting the city's best and beating them all, he supplanted and took over the ABB and with Lung at the helm, their territory grew like fucking weed, a new street entered his domain every single fucking day.

"Now, what made Lung so threatening, isn't that he's a fire-breathing man-dragon, no, it's the fact that he's non-compromising, his policy of one hundred percent absolute obedience held strong back then as it does now. He systematically and viciously indoctornated every single asian gang that existed in Brockton bay.

It was a matter of time before the Kurotora was in his crosshairs, but when his time came, Lung sent him the same message that he sent to every gang before he took them over "Bow, or death"

The Kurotora laughed at their faces, see, this was back when somebody could even form the thought in their brain that they could take Lung in a straight fight. So the Kurotora sent the ABB a message, in the form of the corpse of the boy that the ABB had sent as a messenger. They told Lung publicly to meet them out at the docks, it was an obvious ambush. They were relying on Lung being dumb and honor-bound enough to appear, but the problem was, Lung doesn't play by the conventional rules, he didn't appear"

"First, Lung set fire to their homes and businesses" He tilted the laptop screen so I could see it, on it was a clipping of a news article, showing blacked and charred buildings all over to city "Then he sent Oni Lee to murder the leaders and captains of the Kurotora, his family and his associates" The image changed to another clipping, one with the headlines ' _39 dead in Parahuman Gang Violence_ '

"Afterwards, he sent a message to the rest of the Kurotora, cut off their pinkies, carve the initials of the ABB onto their foreheads and join the ABB, otherwise, they would be seeing Oni Lee in their sleep" he said, pausing for effect "To this day, you can see close to three hundred detached gold-plated fingers decorating the chandeliers of Ruby Dream Casino"

"Do you get it know"

"What?"

"You don't ever fuck with the ABB, and selling their heroin in their city is putting yourself out there as direct competition … but … we might be able to pull this off without the ABB suspecting shit"

"How?"

"That's why I said we have a cover, every red cent we make on the heroin will be pinned directly onto these Grey Dragons, whoever they are … and perfect timing as well, there's been some heat relating to the ABB at the boardwalks, which means that they'll be laying low, and the next Archer's Bridge Festival is in a week. Fuck, man, this is the best chance that you'll have at selling off that case right there"

I held onto the case strongly, I had to suppress an increasingly giddy feeling that had been developing inside me. The general library was within sight, the car was getting closer and closer by the second.

"Anyway, keep that phone close with you, kiddo, I'll send a text on it when I get everything sorted out, and we can go ahead with this job"

kiddo … kiddo … that sent a pang of grief in my heart

"Call me Taylor" I said, I felt as if I could trust this guy, for some reason or another.

He sat silent in his seat, before reaching for his mask, and pulled it off. He looked fairly young, he had a light barely noticeable stubble on his chin and a bump on his nose like it had been broken long ago.

He had a tattoo on his face, like a tic-tac-toe board with a single dot on the top-middle row, two dots on the right row, and three dots on the bottom row

"You can call me Shazif" he said as he raised his fist. I bumped it, and exited the car, being careful that I didn't pull on any wires or cords by accident

"Later" he said as he drove his car off, quickly disappearing into the urban wilderness.

I began to plot a way home through the rats. As I walked under the cover of pale yellow streetlight, it was quiet, and only the noise of the night-owls that lived in the apartments above me provided sound.

I still didn't know what to make of Shazif. He didn't seem to be the asshole or the monster I thought him out to be on first impression, no, quite the opposite. Was he a friend? If so, then he would have been my first one in three years. It was strange to think of it that way. Did I consider Abdullah a friend?

Whilst slowly making my way back home, a stray thought crossed my mind.

" _I have got to stop making friends whilst almost getting shot"_


End file.
